Commentary on popular culture and society, from a (mostly) psychological perspective

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Don't "leave it to the other guy"

Glenn Sacks emailed to let me know about a lawsuit being filed by Fathers and Families, to stop new Massachusetts Child Support Guidelines:

Fathers and Families has filed suit in Federal District Court in Boston to stop the scheduled January 1 implementation of new Child Support Guidelines. The suit seeks a temporary injunction halting the use of the new guidelines until a full hearing can be held. It will be heard before Judge D.P. Woodlock on Monday, January 5 at 10 AM in courtroom 1.....

The new guidelines will cause almost all child support orders to increase substantially — when all factors are considered, middle-class recipients will enjoy a standard of living almost double that of payers who earn about the same amount. In some cases, child support orders will triple, even in cases in which the payer is poor and the child is economically comfortable because the custodial parent earns over $100,000. And in high income cases, the child support order for one child could be nearly $50,000.

Massachusetts is already an expensive place to live; if these new guidelines are passed, it will be harder, mainly for the divorced men in that state. Go take a look here and see what you can do to help. As Dr. Ned Holstein, the executive director of Fathers and Families says, "If you 'leave it to the other guy,' it won’t happen."

58 Comments:

It's not surprising that changing the law in this way is happening in the same state where courts gave us "marriage equality." Once marriage is no longer about establishing a relationship between fathers and their children, then paternity becomes little more than an income transfer program. This is just one more example of how "marriage equality" is marriage hypocrisy.

There are easy REMEDIES for this: 1) don't marry an American woman; 2) don't marry ANY woman in America; and 3) keep your genetic materials to yourself! Do those three things, and this law won't apply to you.

That, unfortunately, isn't enough. Under current law, if you are named the father and do not respond to remove yourself within 30 days, you are irrevocably the father even if you didn't receive proper service of notice and even if you can prove the child isn't yours. Under current law if a woman names any random man, gives CPS an address for him which she knows to be false, and waits the requisite time period, she will have the legal right to demand child support from him. As far as I know there are no cases of women custom ordering wealthy child support payors, but it is technically permissible under current legal precedent.

Worse, women's groups are pushing a more expansive definition of "father", to include men who are not genetically related to the child and who didn't adopt the child, but who provided some care for the child. "Provided care" is the hook for demanding child support from men who kept their genetic materials to themselves. This is not surprising, the harsher the mommy & child support regime gets the faster men run away, so it behooves independent women to make sure they can't.

Suppose three women respectively name Pope Benedict, Brad Pitt, and Barry Obama as the supposed fathers of their bastards.

Will the courts laugh hard as they throw them out?

Further, take a less celebrity-oriented case -- suppose that an obscure Canadian millionaire is named as father of a child in Massachusetts. Will Canada's banks freeze his accounts, or will Canadian lawyers start raising a ruckus?

So called child support is a complete joke. In no other instance is person A required to provide money to person B for person C's benefit, while person B is under no obligation whatsoever to prove that she actually spends the money for person C's benefit, rather than her own.

The custodial parent (person B) should be seen as having a fiduciary duty, like a trustee. She should be required to keep meticulous records showing where the money goes, and how it is used for the child's (person C's) benefit, rather than her own. She should not be allowed to comingle her own funds with those forced out of the non-custodial parent as "child support." And a seperate bank account should be required for the child support money. And each expenditure from that account should be listed, in writing, and justified.

In far, far too many instances, the custodial parent (ie the mother) uses child support payments for her own selfish desires, like for alcohol, narcotics, cigarettes, lottery tickets, and presents for her boyfriend, while the child is not even not properly clothed and fed. The non-custodial parent, ie the father, whose payments to the mother are designed to cover all but "extraordinary" costs (eg braces), must often pay for such recurrent, predictable necessiites for the child as back-to-school clothes and supplies, refills on school lunch voucher, and fees for extra curricular activities that the child already participated in when the divorce occured. And, of course, the non-custodial parent also pays for all the child's expenses during "visitation" time.

But, whining custodial mothers, and the feminist harpies who suppport them, always phrase things in terms of the least amount of time, as in "I only get x amount of money per week (or even "per day") for little Justin." They never phrase it in terms of how much they get per month, or per year. Now we see that so-called child support can reach 50k a year. But, as the extorting mothers put it, that will still "only" be less than 140 dollars a day. Or, maybe they will start measuring by the hour, minute, or second now!

Meanwhile, they conveniently forget that it is the father who pays for the child's expenses when the kid is with him, so not every day of every week is on "their" (ie the child support's) nickel. And that the father pays for the "extraordinary" expenses. And that the father pays for the expenses that she conveniently forgets/neglects to pay that then get labelled as "extraordinary," even though they're really not. And that the father paid for the house she and the children are living in. And the fancy SUV they ride around in. And for the child's continued health insurance. And for, eventually, the child's college tuition as well.

"Waaah, waah, waah, I 'only' get $500 a week for little Kaitlin. Call me a waaaahmbulance!" Yeah, but, that's over 2k a month, and over 25k for the year, and you're not required to show that you even spent it on Kaitlin, and the father pays out directly for Kaitlin when he has her, and you don't have her all the time, so your math is wrong anyway, and the father pays more than the just the so-called "child support" and on and on. Cry me a river, Ms. Strong and Independent Woman, Ms, Struggling Single Mother. Why don't you go on another trip to Cancun with the poolboy while you dump little Kaitlin at your mother's, you lying, phony, gold digging POS.

Give CPS a name and address. That's it. Neither legal process nor the putative father's consent is required. If there is any legal process, the mother gets a free government lawyer, the father must pay his own legal expenses.

Suppose three women respectively name Pope Benedict, Brad Pitt, and Barry Obama as the supposed fathers of their bastards.

These men might have a chance in court, but only because they're famous. Men who are not so famous have not and will not be treated that way. Courts have been quite consistent in ruling that

a) you have only a limited time to dispute being named a fatherb) the fact that you didn't receive notice of being named (the mother gave a wrong, possibly knowingly wrong, address for example) does not stop the limitation period from expiringc) once the limitation period has expired, you cannot dispute being the father even if you have hard evidence (like DNA or eye color).

As to evidence, a few states (Georgia?) have started allowing fathers to dispute being named a father after the fact. They won't get back any of the child support they've paid, but they can avoid future obligations. Women's groups don't like the idea of men shutting down the gravy train by getting evidence that they aren't the father, which is why they're pushing to make it illegal for Dad to get DNA tests without the mother's consent. The UK, as I recall, has already done so.

As if I needed (another) one, this sounds like an excellent reason never to consider moving to Massachusetts. Indeed, it makes me treasure not only my own four kids (for whom I pay a reasonable amount of child support in Texas), but also my vasectomy.

I've been running the numbers. Looks like max 25% support order for low income shinking to 18% for high income. What is the percentage in other states? Is there ever inclusion of "household" income for the "second family" of the recipeient?

the father who pays for the child's expenses when the kid is with him, so not every day of every week is on "their" (ie the child support's) nickel.

You'd think there should be some off-set.

And that the father pays for the "extraordinary" expenses. And that the father pays for the expenses that she conveniently forgets/neglects to pay that then get labelled as "extraordinary," even though they're really not. And that the father paid for the house she and the children are living in. And the fancy SUV they ride around in. And for the child's continued health insurance. And for, eventually, the child's college tuition as well.

Aren't these intended to be paid out of the child support order, or in the case of tuition after the support order is over? Does the court actually order these payments above the support order for base expenses such as housing, etc.

There's no offset for the time the non-custodial parent has the kid per se, but, the CS is set, at least in part, based on the amount of time the custodial parent has the kid, according to the court order. That is why many, many women fight tooth and nail for every minute of official custody-- not because they love little Kaitlin so damn much that they can't live without her, nor because, despite their false allegations to the contrary, that they really believe the father is not fit. Then, after the custody order is written and the CS level set by the court, the mother will often "request" (more like demand, really, in many cases) that the husband actually take the kid for MORE of the time than the order says. Of course, there is no "offset" for that in the CS figure. And, if the husband balks, the wife can always make trouble for him with more false allegations, or by inducing PAS in the kid, or by simply not allowing him his required custody time (which is almost never enforced by the courts).

Remember too, that, in many instances, the custodial parent is also supposed to be, ya'know, like, working, so when she says "I only get such and such amount a week for little Justin" she is conveniently forgetting that she is supposed to be paying, out of her own money (not the CS money) for at least some of Justin's expenses.

As for the false "extraordinary" expenses, of course they are supposed to come out of the regular CS, and out of the above mentioned share that the custodial parent is supposed to be contributing. But, as you can see, what's "supposed" to be isn't alway what is, especially when it would mean the mother actually has to do what's right by the kid, and not herself.

What is the non-custodial father supposed to do when, on Monday morning, after his weekend custody of the kid, the kid tells him his lunch card is empty? The father is, according to the order, supposed to take the kid to school and the mother pick him up. If he doesn't give the kid money for the card, he won't have lunch. So, he pays it. Yeah, in theory, he can then call up the mother and demand reimbursement, but what is his recourse when she refuses? Remember, he can't withhold CS for any reason, or risk State and Federal felony charges. Same with the money for the kid's ballet class or soccer team. . . "Daddy, mommy says you need to pay for my classes/team fees, or I won't get to go. . ." What the hell is the father going to do in that situation?

As for the house (always given to the custodial parent, ie the mother) and the SUV (ditto, the father gets the older, junky second car, if he's lucky), that has no bearing on the CS. It's as if shelter and transportation were somehow just magically provided. Technically, of course, these items are part of the "marital settlement" and, therefore, don't "count" as CS. But, since the mother gets the kids, the courts also think she should get the house and the good car, because it is "better" for the kids that the custodial parent has these things than the non custodial parent. As for the health insurance and college tuition, they are not considered in setting the CS, they are seperate from it, technically. Still, when mother/whiner says "I only get. . . " most people think that means that is all the kid gets from Dad, and that she, superhero Single mom, somehow manages, thorugh her amazing ability to economize and multi-task, to squeeze health insurance and college tuition for the kid out of that "small" amount too. And that's just another lie. . .

When the mother says "I only get such and such an amount per week. . ." she means per calendar week, not for 7 days that she has actual custody. Let's say the mother has custody 5 days out of 7. Let's say she gets $400 per calendar week in CS. When she does her whining, she does not say, "I only get 400 dollars for every 5 days I have Kaitlin. . ." but "I only get 400 dollar a week for Kaitlin. . ." Somehow, the two days Kaitlin spends with Dad just disappear, or, again, quite mysteriously, Kaitlin incurs expenses for the custodial mother even during the time she is with Dad. Yeah, the time Kaitlin spends with the non custodial parent is considered in setting the CS, but it is not considered when the mother whines about the CS level, nor when the feminist lobby amplifies the whine, nor when the compliant mainstream media mindlessly repeats it.

As if I needed (another) one, this sounds like an excellent reason never to consider moving to Massachusetts.

Nearly all states have rules similar to the ones I describe.

When she does her whining, she does not say, "I only get 400 dollars for every 5 days I have Kaitlin. . ." but "I only get 400 dollar a week for Kaitlin. . ."

Since that money is received tax-free, and the marginal cost of a child is a whole lot less than $400 a week, that really is whining rather than a just complaint. Besides, even if the kid did cost $400 a week, that still means the kid isn't costing her a dime out of her pocket. That's why (except for the poorest payors) 25% of income child support orders are really disguised alimony for the mother.

Absolutely it's really just disguised alimony. The money is not only tax free and the marginal cost of the kid much less than the CS figure, but many of the big ticket expeses, such as housing, transportation, health insurance, and future college tuition, and extraordinary expenses, are really paid for by the father in addition to the CS. And, as I mentioned earlier, the custodial mother is not even under any formal obligation (never mind any real, practically enforceable constraint) to account for the expenditure of the CS money. It is hers to do with as she pleases.

Much ado about nothing, and merely a fund-raising effort on the part of the charity. The effort is pre-doomed to failure.

Men are throwaways in our society. Their only options left seem to them to be Santa suits and homemade flame throwers.

It is the single women of Massachusetts who should be lamenting this arbitrary decision by the unelected courts. It's just one more reason not to marry them, something the more intelligent black males have already figured out.

One problem is that white males don't properly warn their bro's what the girls have in store for them until it's too late. Thus ... Christmas day tragedies.

I have seen both sides of child support (payer/recipient). If you are trying to do the right thing, being a payer can be a nightmare. Between the child support and requirements for insurance and other monetary reimbursements you can easily pay 40-50% of your take home pay as support (it is always based on your gross income and taken out of your net), and of course the aforementioned "extras" that have a tendency to show up on your weekends go on top of that. As a recipient, if you have to deal with a payer who does not care about it, you can't do anything. Your only recourse at times is to throw the payer in jail and leave them there if they just refuse to pay anything.

Another huge issue is imputed income. When you are getting divorced it is not uncommon for the non-custodial parent (usually the male) to take on other jobs or work a lot of over-time in order to re-establish themselves in new housing, new transportation, etc. This is a huge mistake as the courts will look at that and use it as your base income for support orders. Support orders never decrease later so suddenly a man is left owing support based off of an income that he can not continue to make. And the courts don't care how he lives.

I personally know a guy who had this happen to him. When his ex kicked him out, he started working 20 hours over-time a week and a side job to get reset. He wound up paying CS that took up 2/3rds of his take-home pay once the OT ended. In court he protested and the judge just pointed to the paperwork and said the CS was right for now and he could try to lower it in 2 years. Two years later another judge told him he had to continue to pay based off the higher income as he obviously could make that much if he applied himself.

I just moved out of Massachusetts, which was a good place to grow up back in the day, but is on its way to being a Stalinist failed state.

It's hard to pick whether the social agencies, the bizarre courts and their emotionally-driven irrational decisions, the one-party political system, or just the deep irrationality of the average Bay Stater these days is most responsible for putting Deval Patrick's state on the downward arc of Kim Jong Il's or Robert Mugabe's.

Clarity arrived with a fanfare when the state's electorate defeated a tax rollback initiative in November -- by 70-30%. I take that as the ratio of tax eaters to tax payers in Mass.

Result? On the radio news, the financial minutes usually list the stock outcomes for the Bay State's top employers. Those used to include GM, Raytheon, GE, Gillette, etc. -- manufacturers. Nowadays they include Wal-Mart and Home Depot.

If you're doing something beyond retail, you can give your employees an effective 5+% take-home raise by moving your business. And that's not even accounting for the anti-worker and anti-capital-creation courts and regulatory system that the subject of this post exemplifies. Get out of there, guys. Let them tax someone else to prosperity... or try.

The appropriate thing to do is to set up information outlets at all venues where future college students or future employees of the state of Massachusetts meet. That it, any place where people think of moving to Mass. for college or for jobs should have information packets warning men that they are endangering their welfare by moving to Mass. This is especially important for guys in high-tech/high-pay jobs. Any guy in a high pay job could be named arbitrarily as a father and have his income attached. Someone must go to college fairs and job fairs and warn guys of the risks of moving to Mass.

This is from something I posted on Glenn Sack's site for whimpering males:

Every time a 'poor me, I'm discriminated against, I'm a victim of double standards, women get all the breaks' site pops up on the internet, I get a good laugh. I took the time to view your various complaints, and I've come to the conclusion that you're a whiny, self-absorbed male who vents his spleen at women and "feminists" in general, instead of advising fathers to accept and live up to their obligations and responsibilities.

You can bitch all you want about the 'inequities' of divorce and child support, but WOMEN have always bourne the brunt of the aftermath of divorce, including child care.

My mother raised 7 kids by herself. As we grew up, all of us worked to make ends meet....

The men's story?: My biological father cared more for the horse track than he did his own family. Suffice it to say that he was nothing more than a sperm donor. My mother divorced him when I was 3 and my baby sister was 1 1/2,after 11 years of marriage. She never demanded alimony, just child support. He skipped town and never paid one red cent. That was in 1960.

My former step father was a child-abusing drunk......When she finally divorced him after 10 years, he also skipped town. No child support for his step children nor for his biological children.

.....How about discussing the millions of fathers who help make kids, then abandon them?

But that'll never happen because you're too preoccupied with providing a crying towel for a bunch of puerile, misogynist, bitter men, who would rather blame the system and their former wives/girlfriends than lend a hand with their kids.

First of all, recycling your old posts from somewhere else proves what, exactly? That you can't be bothered to do anything more than cut and paste? That you have, at most, one thing to say and will just keep repeating it and repeating it ad nausium?

"Women have always bourne [sic[ the brunt of. . . divorce. . ."

What a joke! Women make out like bandits in divoce. That's why the majority of divorces are sought by women. Women who are certified teachers or registered nurses get divorced, and then get to sit on their fat asses living off CS, alimony, the marital settlement, with the ex paying her attorneys' fees, and the kids' health insurance, in the house that his income mostly paid for, and drive the better of the two cars (also mostly paid for with his income). The husband, meanwhile, has to find a new apartment, even if there only 2 kids, but one is a boy and one a girl, no matter how young, the apartment must have 3 bedrooms, or Child Services will say it is not "appropriate" for children. He must pay first and last months rent, and security deposit, and, possibly a rental agent's fee, he must furnish and equip this apartment from scratch, as Moma not only gets the house but she gets everything in it too. Everything from sheets and towels, pots and pans, brooms and mops to TVs and computers must be purchased, and all at once. Phone, gas, electric, cable and whatever other utilities must be hooked up, which requires fees. He probably has to get another vehicle, as the "second car" is not suitable for ferrying kids around. Meanwhile, his pension is cut in half, at best. And, he has to walk on eggshells because, if he loses his job, he won't be able to pay his CS and will be jailed as a felon.

"including the child care. . ."

Women fight for custody, because of the CS bucks it brings. They can hardly then turn around and claim that providing the child care is a "burden."

"My mother raised. . .The men's story. . ."

Um, not to put too fine a point on it, but why do think anyone in the world gives a damn about your personal, idiosyncratic story, and why would you think that anyone believes a word of it anyway, even if they did care? How easy is it to get on the internet and say," My moma did this, my daddy did that"? Pretty darn easy, no?

Most fathers who "abandon" their kids are poor or lower middle class men on the lamb from CS payments set too high for them to pay. They have the choice of not seeing their kids or seeing their kids and being sent directly to prison.

The overwhelming majority of fathers are involved, deeply involved, in their childrens' lives. More so than fathers in the past. That is the new norm. And, while some may resent it, most don't, quite the contrary, their children become the center of their lives. Then, all of a sudden, Ms. Impossible to Please Princess, for no good reason at all ("We fell out of love") decides to end the relationship. And, though she instisted the father be central to the kids' life, now she wants him out of it entirely. Except, of course, for the big, fat check she demands every month, and has the government act as her "muscle" to get.

"He [the biological father] skipped town and never paid one red cent. That was in 1960."

1960. That's almost 50 years ago. Don't you think it's possible that the social and legal situations have changed since then? Or is it a case of this is your story, so it must be everyone else's story too, from 1960 to now, and from now to the end of time?

sfc mac gave this same story over on glennsacks.com. The one thing that comes through loud and clear from her story is that there is some serious PAS indoctrination by her mom.

Her bio dad left when she was 3. So all information about him is from mom. What she left out, was that her mom remarried after less than a year after the divorce. and her mom had 5 kids with this abuser(her words), but on glenn's site, she gave examples of how abusive her mother was toward her stepfather. One example was her mother kicking down a door when she was pregnant and hitting the stepfather in the head. I don't know about anyone else, but it ain't that easy to kick in a door.

And the biggest issue that she fails to see...this isn't the 60's anymore. 40 years later, the divorce courts and the child support/divorce industry is heavily stacked in favor of women, thanks to concerted efforts by the feminist movement. It's a money making scam, and has nothing what so ever to do with "the best interests of the children".

Who on earth would craft a law that would force a man to pay for a deed he did not commit?

That's the law on child support in every state in the union. Blame our politicians, and the feminists who fight tooth and nail to obstruct any attempt to reform the system they helped create. In the eyes of feminists, the "best interests of the child" (and women!) trump simple justice.

I'm in NH and am currently fighting my ex-gf for custody of our daughter.

So far, she decided to leave (house was in my name, we weren't married), broke my finger while trying to "remove" the one AC I kept (she got the other 3) from the window while she was outside the house. I got arrested for Domestic Violence because she lied and said I tossed her off the porch, yet it was me with the broken finger, me who called 911. I was found not guilty, but now I have a record of domestic violence on file. My temp CS order was based on my expenses, not my income, the judge said that if I could afford the expenses, I must be lying about my income. The following month my house was foreclosed on, eliminating $2300 a month mortgage from my expenses that I couldn't pay on my single income. Thus proving that my income/expense sheet was accurate. The expenses were being met with my ex's income included, she left... with her income, but the expenses were still mine. So, now my CS order is actually about 80% of my income. I'm extremely fortunate to have family that I could live with.

Yes I've filed for a reduction of CS and when we finally get to the final hearing, maybe I'll get it, if the judge is an idiot and doesn't give me custody.

My ex is bipolar, undiagnosed as such, but she's on effexor from one Dr (treats depression) and valium from another (treats mania). She knows that she has the issue, but won't get it treated because she was afraid her ex-husband would use that to get custody of their son and not have to pay her $2000 month in CS anymore (we discussed it a couple of years ago when things were still good) that's why she goes to different Drs.

Her words to me "You should have expected this, you saw what I did to Scott. You know how vindictive I am."

So sfc mac, tell me again that the system is fair. Here I am trying to get my daughter away from a dangerous woman. This mentally ill woman actually posted bail for a level 3 sex offender who was arrested for kidnapping, and assualt charges, then jailed for not registering in the town where he lived. He was required to register from a rape conviction when he was 20 and raped his little sister, he had to serve a year, then was eligible for bail on the kidnapping and assault charges. Yet when I proved it in court, and my ex admitted it, all I got was an order that the rapist wasn't allowed to sleep at the house if my daughter was there. Who was going to tell on him if he slept over, my ex? The rapist? No.

I'm currently living in a 3 bedroom house that was inspected by a GAL and declared acceptable. There's no reason that I shouldn't have custody already, and yet, I still wait.

"It is always tempting to dismiss … violations as aberrations, the result of excess by a few overzealous officials, since civil and human rights are violated be every government, even in democracies. Yet considered in the light of constitutional principle, the destruction of ancient protections is clearly systematic with the nation's family courts and endemic to a governmental regime whose very existence is predicated and dependent on the power to remove children from their parents. Far from simple violations of particular constitutional clauses, these practices and powers are undermining constitutional government in its most fundamental principles. The power to take children from their parents for no reason is arbitrary government at its most intrusive, since it invades and obliterates all of private life. Yet we have created a governmental machinery that exists for no other purpose."

Thus writes Stephen Baskerville's "Taken Into Custody" (The War Against Fathers, Marriage, and the Family):

But why would would the Massachusetts child support orders go up by so much in the first place? According to Baskerville (and to common sense), the answer is much more cynical than you expect…

"Within the closed discursive world of the enforcement regime, a father becomes a 'deadbeat' if for any reason he fails or refuses to surrender control of his family to the hegemony of the state

For all its professed concern about fathers "abandoning" their children, the regime comes down hardest on those fathers who refuse to do so, since fathers who quit their jobs to move to where their children have been taken are given no relief for this sacrifice of their careers and earning power but instead can be prosecuted for being unemployed and losing income

Men who are truly intent on abandoning their progeny have little difficulty in disappearing; it is fathers who want to see their children who allow themselves to be snared. This may reveal the cruelest and most cynical side of the child-support machine: its willingness to use a father's love for his children to plunder and destroy him.

To the question of why so many ejected fathers are unemployed or penurious, this is not to difficult to answer once one understands how the courts operate. Once the children are separated from their father, neither the courts nor the bureaucracy has much incentive to ensure his continued solvency — indeed, a solvent father is a threat — so they can happily reduce him to penury. After all, a fresh supply of fathers is constantly being brought into the system. The myopia was starkly illustrated during periodic controversies over whether to give child support priority over other debts in bankruptcy proceedings, when noone stops to ask the obvious question of why so many allegedly well-heeled "deadbeats" were going through bankruptcy in the first place

To what extent child support is responsible for the very poverty it is claimed to alleviate is unclear. It has long been known that the vast majority of the homeless are male. Widespread anecdotal evidence suggests that family courts may be partially responsible for their plight."

In addition, Baskerville has this to say…

New York City reports conviction rates comparable to those in the Soviet Union, over 90 percent "even before the specialized domestic violence courts were established"

Nowhere else in the law do we regard convicting people of crimes — thousands of people of whose guilt or innocence we can have no first-hand knowledge — as a virtue for its own sake

"This bill is classic police-state legislation and violates just about every constitutional principle that anyone with even a minimal familiarity with our Constitution might think of," according to Robert Martin who teaches constitutional law at the University of Western Ontario

Walter Fox, a Toronto lawyer, describes these courts as "scary and pre-fascist," saying there is no presumption of innocence or burden of proof

In Britain those who are labeled not as "defendants" but as "abusers"

"Victim support groups," who say women "should be spared having to take legal action," can now act in name of anonymous alleged victims — with no proof that such victims even exist — to loot men who have been convicted of nothing.

Special courts to try special crimes that can only be committed by certain people are a familiar device totalitarian regimes adopted to replace blind justice with ideological justice

"Women are lone parents in 84 percent of cases not because men abandon their children," writes columnist John Waters [in the Irish Times on October 6, 1998], "but because … the fathers have been constructively banished, with the collusion of the state, which encourages women to abuse the grotesque power we have conferred on them."

Melanie Phillips: "It is not uncommon … for women to make entirely spurious charges of violence against their ex-husbands just to prevent them from having access to their children … Courts are overwhelmingly disposed to believe them, even when there isn't a shred of evidence … Most physical abuse is perpetrated by women."

What we confront here is a bureaucratic machine of a kind that has never before been seen in the United States or the other English-speaking democracies. The implications reach far beyond fathers and even beyond the family itself, for forcibly severing the intimate bond between parents and their children threatens the liberties of all of us. "The right to one's own children … is perhaps the most basic individual right," writes Susan Shell, "so basic we hardly think of it." By establishing a private sphere of life from which the state is excluded, family bonds also serve as the foundation of a free society. "No known society treats the question of who may properly call a child his or her own as simply … a matter to be decided entirely politically as one might distribute land or wealth," Shell continues.

"Though the courts promiscuously invoke both traditional stereotypes about motherhood and modern ideas of women's rights, it is really a question of money and power, specifically that of the lucrative divorce industry, which offers parents — usually but not necessarily mothers — a tempting package of financial and emotional incentives to file for divorce."

writes Stephen Baskerville further in "Taken Into Custody" (The War Against Fathers, Marriage, and the Family):

"…the state and its agents are not neutral parties. They have a very tangible interest in declaring … an impasse [in a marriage]. It creates a major extension of state power. Through divorce, the modern state achieves one of its most coveted and dangerous ambitions: to control the private lives of its citizens

Far more than marriage, divorce by its nature requires active government intervention

Far from being a private matter, it inherently denies not only the inviolibility of marriage but the very concept of a private sphere of life

What the government then offers to the parent who invites it in is the promise that her invitation will be rewarded; the state will establish her as a puppet government, a satrap of the state within the family. This requires that not the faithless but the faithful parent be punished

What we are describing here is the divorce industry, a massive and largely hidden governmental and quasi-governmental machine consisting of judges, lawyers, psychologists and psychiatrists, social workers, child protective services, child-support enforcement agents, mediators, counselors, and feminist groups, plus an extensive host of economic interests, such as divorce planners, forensic accountants, real estate appraisers, and many others. These officials and professionals invariably profess to be motivated by concern for the "best interest" of the other people's children. Yet their services are activated only with the dissolution of families and the removal of parents. Whatever pieties they may proclaim therefore, the hard reality is that they have a concrete interest in encouraging family break-up, and virtually all their power and earnings derive from the harm that divorce inflicts on children. "Fights over control of the children," reports one former divorce insider, "are where most of the billable hours in family court are consumed."

…today power has been assumed by officials, who act in [the childrens'] name and claim to represent their interests: judges, lawyers, psychotherapists, social workers, mediators, counselors, bureaucratic police, and a swarm of other human parasites who derive powerful political sustenance and lucrative financial nourishment from the cannibalized father

Harsh as it may sound, it cannot be denied that these officials are united in one overriding interest: having children separated from their parents. Without the power to remove children from their parents — and most often their fathers — the industry cannot thrive, and these officials will have no business. And so it must declare that the parents are criminals and that the fathers have "abandoned" their children, even when this is plainly not true. Put simply, the first principle of the divorce industry, the basic premise without which it has no reason to exist, is the removal of the father from the family . Once this is accomplished, the state is free to assume control over mothers and children as well.

The linchpin of the divorce machinery is the family court … the courts do not remain neutral but actively take the side of the wrongdoers and punish their victims.

To make conflict over custody and access grounds for denying custody and access is obviously to reward the parent that creates conflict by tring to impede the other's custody and access

The regime of involuntary divorce, forcible removal of children, coerced child support, and knowingly false accusations is now warping our entire legal system, undermining and overturning principles of common law that have protected individual rights for centuries. The presumption of innocence has been inverted

The federal funding also supplies an added incentive to make guidelines as onerous as possible and to squeeze every dollar from every parent available (as well as to turn as many parents as possible into payers by providing financial incentives for mothers to divorce )

In fact, it is not unreasonable to see the custodial parent at this point as effectively and functionally a government official. She is paid to care for her children with money that comes directly from the state (after being confiscated from the father).

Simply by filing for divorce, the mother is designated, in effect, family dictator. … The family becomes in effect government-occupied territory. The children experience family life not as a nursery of cooperation, compromise, trust, and forgiveness. Instead they receive a firsthand lesson in tyranny. Backed by the courts, police, and jails, the custodial parent now "calls the shots" alone — issuing orders and instructions to the non-custodial parent, undermining his authority with the children, dictating the terms of his access to them, talking to and about him contemptuously and condescendingly in the presence of the children as if he were himself a naughty child, perhaps engaging in a full-scale campaign of vilification — and all with the blessing and backing of the government.

ON THE SUBJECT CHILD ABUSE (AND OF… CHILD PROTECTION)

…we arrive at the crowning achievement of the divorce regime and the one most thoroughly disguised by politically correct politicians, journalists, ansd scholars: the massive and even institutionalized epidemic of child abuse — emotional, physical, and sexual — for which it is largely responsible and on which it may even be said to thrive. For the uncontrovertible fact is that divorce and single-parent homes are not precipitated by child abuse, as the courts, bar associations, and feminists would have us believe, but the other way around .

Though not classified as a form of child abuse, the emotional devastation inflicted on children by divorce itself is arguably at least as serious as the effects on grown women of the "abuse" recounted by domestic violence groups ("depriving her of clothes"). The psychological trauma and emotional damage of divorce on children has been understood for centuries, however fashionable it has become in recent years to deny it. Judith Wallerstein and Sandra Blakeslee have called divorce the "single most important cause of enduring pain in a child's life."

When we recall that 80 percent of divorces are inflicted on the children by only one parent — who can do so over the objections of the other — it is not unreasonable to class divorce itself as a form of preventable child abuse.

But the psychological abuse is only the beginning of the nightmare for the children of divorce. Beyond it is the physical and sexual violence to which children in single-mother homes are exposed far more than those in intact families. For contrary to misleading statements propagated by the child abuse branch of the divorce industry, the uncontested and inescapable fact of central importance in understanding the causes of sexual abuse is that it is overwhelmingly a phenomenon of single-parent homes .

a bureaucratic culture that threatens both fathers and mothers, including intact families. Some have suggested the rise of "a new class of professionals — social workers, therapists, foster care providers, family court lawyers — who have a vested interest in taking over parental functions." Government bureaucracies that have assumed the role of protector over children whose fathers have been forced away also develop a professional interest in eliminating their competitors.

"Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Total immunity [enjoyed by social workers] is absolute power." They are even empowered to punish their critics

There is no evidence that the child abuse epidemic has anything to do with fathers except insofar as they are prevented from protecting their children or that allegations made against fathers during divorce proceedings are anything other than a smokescreen to disguise the real abuse.

The most dangerous place for a child is the home of a single mother. The HHS studies confirmed the already well-etablished fact that children in single-parent households are at much higher risk for physical violence and sexual molestation than those living in two-parent homes

"The person who is least likely to abuse a child is a married father," notes Canadian Senator Anne Cools. "The person who is most likely is a single, unmarried mother." Maggie Gallagher sums up the reality: "The person most likely to abuse a child physically is a single mother. The person most likely to abuse a child sexually is the mother's boyfriend or second husband." A two-parent family is "the safest environment for children."

Shorn of ideological euphemism, what these figures effectively demonstrate is that the presence of the second parent, usually the father, constitutes the principal impediment to abuse. At one time all this would have been considered commons sense, because two parents check each another's excesses and the father was traditionally recognized as the children's natural protector.

Whether it is evicting the father from the home, establishing visitation centers where he may see his children under the surveillance of social workers, protecting the children from the abusive single mother and her boyfriend, treating the emotionally devastated children with drugs or psychotherapy, or removing them altogether into the control of state-sponsored foster homes and (as they grow older) juvenile detention facilities — the solution to the problems created by each bureaucracy is to create more bureaucracy.

One can venture further, since it is apparent that much of the abuse takes place not despite government programs, but because of them. Legally speaking, it it the courts that create the single-mother homes where the bulk of the child abuse takes place and that force the fathers away from the children.

Judges are well aware that the most dangerous environment for children is precisely the single-mother homes they themselves create. Yet they have no hesitation in creating them, secure in the knowledge that they will never be held accountable for any harm that comes to the children. On the contrary, if they do not they may be punished by the bar associations, feminists, and the social service bureaucracies whose existing and funding depends on a constant supply of impoverished and abused children. The harsh but unavoidable truth is that child abuse is very good for family law business and for the massive bureaucratic machinery connected with it, since the more abused children the more demand for courts and child protective services.

Appalling as it sounds, the conclusion seems inescapable that we have created a huge army of government officials with a vested professional interest in encouraging as much child abuse as they can.

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